Hallofheroesmv Wikia:Manual of Style
The Manual of Style ' is a style guide for all Hall of Heroes Wiki articles. It establishes this house style, to help editors produce articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting. The goal is to make an encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. Consistency in style and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion; this is especially important within an article. Article Names, Sections and Headings Article Names Every article in the Hall of Heroes Wiki must have a name, chosen according the 'Naming Conventions of the wiki. If a name is not provided in any canonical material, the name of the article can be chosen regarding the exceptions provided in the Conjecture Policy, choosing its name from the Marvel Comics Universe if available. The following points are critical to formatting article titles: *'"Title Case"': The first letter of every word in a title must be capitalized, except for articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, prepositions and the "to" in an infinitive. * Singular form: Article names should be singular as a general rule, however, some exceptions are accepted, such as members of a particular race ("Enhanceds"), groups ("The Quadrants"), grouped items ("Five Keys of Vlanemheim") or lists ("List of Characters"). *'Full names without ranks': Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, (e.g. Director Osborne, not Director Osborne), unless to state that the character now has that title. *'Avoid definite or indefinite articles': The definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles except if they are used as the official title, for example The Quadrants. Article Sections For a detailed description of how an in-universe article must be written and structured, consult the Layout Guide. As a general guide, all character articles should be structured as follows: #Introduction line #InfoBox #One header for each book they are in #Powers and Abilities #Personality #Origins Headings Heading Format In order to create Sections for an article, the (heading) markup must be used headings, not the ' ('bold') markup. Example: : This is a heading which produces: :This is a heading Using this codes, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article. Heading Rules *Unlike Wikipedia and many other wikis, this Wikia uses the Title Capitalization rules :#Capitalize from the first to the last word. :#Capitalize nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions. :#Lowercase articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions. :#Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive. *Links within headings should only be applied to link Event pages *Headings must not contain images. Article Bodies Links *'Internal Links': Any internal article should be linked in every mention in another article's infobox, once upon its first mention in another article's intro, and once upon its first mention in each of other articles' sub-sections. *'Unnecessary Punctuation': Linking unnecesary punctuation should be avoided in the articles. Letters or words touching the link will be included in the link and should avoided as well (e.g. use Lance's instead of Lance's). *'Redirects and Piped Links': All redirects in the Hall of Heroes Wiki serve a specific purpose, other than to facilitate searching for articles. Therefore, a redirect that falls in one of the categories considered in the Redirect Policy must be linked as such, instead of circunventing the redirect with a piped link (e.g. use Scarlett instead of Scarlett). *'Do not add external links to other sites without permission.' *'Do not use external links in the body of an article': External Links must be reserved for the trivia, external links and references sections. Images *Images appearing in articles should avoid having external logos of the series/networks where it has aired. *Avoid having text between two or more images (sandwich effect). or between an image and an infobox. *Thumbnails shown in the article should generally be 200px/250px. Images containing important detail (e.g. a map, diagram, or chart) may need larger sizes than usual to make them readable. Templates Templates should be added where it is necessary and removed when it is unnecessary. This specially includes the Maintenance templates. *Specific Wiki templates, such as disambiguation templates (Template:Otheruses and Template:Moreuses) and Maintenance templates (Template:Stub, Template:Imageless, Template:Upcoming, must go at the very top of the article, before the article itself starts. This does not apply to Maintenance templates dedicated to specific sections (Template:Expand or Template:Rewrite). *Do not add categories to an article that are automatically added by a templates. *The prefix "Template:" does not need to be added, as long as you are using these form of brackets ( ). *Infobox templates (such as Template:Character) should always be at the top of the article. Trivia Trivia helps readers learn more facts about the subject that is not originally in the main body of the article. *Avoid opinions (even general opinions), such as "It is widely believed by fans...", as they are not true trivia facts, and this section must adhere too to the Hall of Heroes Wiki:Conjecture Policy. *Avoid redundancy. Always check to see if the article has the fact before adding. *Only post '''relevant' information to the subject of the article. If it belongs on a more specific article or another topic, post it on the other article. *If a trivia is related to another trivia, add an indented list below the parent trivia. If that should be the case, however, decide whether the facts are enough to generate their own main body paragraph. Categories Every article must be categorized, adding one of the existing categories that can be applied to it. Consult the Layout Gude and its derived sub-pages in order to consult the categories that should be applied to each article. A list of categories can be found . We ask that you do not create new categories and add them to articles. Most of the time, if a category does not exist, it is not intended to exist, or there is already an existing category that covers its purpose. Please be sure to ask the Administrators before creating a category. Perspective The Hall of Heroes Wiki presents two types of articles #Articles narrative elements, like characters, locations, or items; often called In-Universe articles'. #Articles about production elements, such as authors; often called Out-of-Universe articles'. Each type requires a particular approach. In-Universe *If an article is in-universe or described as such, it belongs to the Hall of Heroes Multiverse exclusively and not to the real world. *Articles about any in-universe subject, such as characters, locations, items, vehicles, organizations or races, should always be written from an in-universe perspective, which means that must be written as if the writer was inside the Hall of Heroes Multiverse. *Titles of books telling the HH story should not be referred to in a sentence of an in-universe article. Bold and Italic Fonts Bold When a text is in bold, it appears like this. It can be accomplished by typing three single quotes (') on both ends of a word or phrase. *The name of the subject of the article must be bolded in its first mention. *Alternate names for the subject of the article must be bolded in their first mention. This includes names of titles that redirect to said article. Italics When a text is in italics, it appears like this. It can be accomplished by typing two single quotes (') on both ends of a word or phrase. Using double quotes will not make the word or phrase italicized. *Italics must be used for the titles of works of art and literature, such as films, short films, television series, episodes and comics. *The proper names for an item must be written in italics. Grammar Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication. Three C's To best achieve a Good Article, writers here generally apply this rule of thumb: language should be clear, consistent, and concise. * Clarity mandates that the language relay its message sharply, unambiguous, and be wholly self-evident. It is important to be as clear and neutral as possible so as to communicate the idea of a sentence effectively to the reader. * Consistency ensures article flow, an important aspect in being clear. The article should be easy to read and predictable, while assuming a reasonable comprehension level. * Concision, or brevity, is the art of using no more words than necessary to convey an idea, though it should not be misunderstood with "leaving out information". It is an important practice when writing so that you do not lose your audience — try to think "get to the point" as much as possible. Capitalization Despite unnecessary capitalization should be avoided, it should not be reserved for proper names only. Links According to the Hall of Heroes Wiki:Naming Conventions of the Hall of Heroes Wiki, every word in an article's name, with few exceptions, must be capitalized. As such, all links must be capitalized even though they describe common names either in the first mention and every other subsequent mention. On the other hand, words included in a title must not be capitalized in subsequent mentions (e.g. "The project, initially thought to be researching radiation resistance...") Capitalization of "The" In general, do not capitalize the definite article in the middle of a sentence. However, some idiomatic exceptions, including most titles of artistic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage. Only capitalize ‘The’ if it is at the beginning of something. Locations Names of institutions, such as Oxford University or Southend High School, are proper nouns and require capitals. However, generic words for institutions (university, college...) do not use take capitals. Political or geographical units, such as cities, towns and countries, follow the same rules: as proper nouns they require capitals (New York City); but as generic words they do not. Spelling and Punctuation This Manual of Style is not intended to be a detailed English guide. Knowledge of basic spelling and punctuation is automatically assumed. Language and Spelling Though the readers and editors of the Hall of Heroes Wiki speak many languages, the Hall of Heroes Wiki uses standard spelling, grammar and punctuation, as it the variety of English used in the original releases of most canonical materials. However, direct quotes should never be altered, even if they do not use American spelling or English language at all. Tense If something used to be something (e.g Ghost used to be a member of the Murderers), then something should be past tense. However, if it still is something (e.g Alex is a member of MIST), then the sentence should be in present tense. Remember, the information should be according to published books. Paragraphs and Formatting Inexperienced writers have a tendency towards "run on" paragraphs. Some of these may number dozens of lines and many column inches without a break. This makes the articles difficult to read as everything seems to flow together. It also makes it tough to quickly skim articles for data points. A good paragraph (grammatically speaking) is two to five sentences in length on average. It covers one thought or idea or piece of information. Any time there is a change in the thought, idea, or piece of information, there should also be a paragraph change. When formatting paragraphs, adding an empty line between paragraphs looks better in the articles than the traditional "paragraph indent" on the first line. It makes for a more definite "break point" visually, and allows the reader to more easily see that they are reading a new paragraph at that point. Terminology Sometimes, the Hall of Heroes Wiki uses very specific words to refer to terms that could be described with different synonyms. In order to maintain consistency among every article, some words must be chosen instead of others that, apparently, had the same meaning: *'Powers and Abilities': The word Powers is specifically used to refer to what is commonly known as "super-powers", such as super-strength, super-speed, flight and many others, while the word Abilities is used to refer to a list of skills that include Martial Arts, Marksmanship, Acrobatics, Engineering, Scientific Knowledge, Business Management, Computer Hacking, Espionage, Multilingualism, among others. As such, while redacting an article and making reference to any of them, both words are not interchangeable, and cannot be used indiscriminately in case the word is repeated in a sentence. *'Agents and Operatives': Clandestine organizations, such as Veracity, use many different words to refer to its members, such as "members", "agents" or "assets", among others. The usual word that would be used to refer to them would be agents, using the literal etymology of the word, derived from the same root as the verb "to act". However, in order to distinguish its members from members of other organizations referred to as "Agents", understanding the word agent as "official member of an Agency", members of such clandestine organizations should be referred to using the word Operatives. *'Alien': The word "alien" is defined as "A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration. This word is commonly used to refer of individuals or items of extraterrestrial origin. However, applying the principle of a Hall of Heroes Wiki:Neutral Point of View, for an extraterrestrial individual, a normal human being would be an "alien". Therefore, it is preferred to use the extraterrestrial in any instance the word alien would be used. The only exception to this are direct quotations or references made explicitly using the word, and always using quotation marks. Sourcing As stated in the Hall of Heroes Wiki:Sourcing|Sourcing Policy, the Hall of Heroes Wiki does not accept original ideas or fanon, and all writing should be based on reliable sources and on the books written by Jay, and the other official writers of Hall of Heroes.